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A comment on How Estimates of the Gig Economy Went Wrong. Parent comment

Re:How Estimates of the Gig Economy Went Wrong by ryanwaggoner on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @10:41AM (#18865520)
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have a social safety net, but the “distortion” in the free markets here is the UC benefits, not a contract gig that lets the worker decide whether they want to work 0 hours per week or 100 hours per week or anything in between. That’s pretty free market to my ears, and having a sharp public benefits cliff that starts at 0 hours instead of 16 is the source of the distortion.

Instead of blaming Uber for having work available for people who want to only do a few hours per week (or who can’t do more for whatever reason), why not blame the government for not updating their rules to better fit the actual reality on the ground?

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Re:How Estimates of the Gig Economy Went Wrong by DanBC on Friday January 11, 2019 @01:56PM (#18885859)
So, a follow up is this court case victory announced today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46834533

> Four working single mothers have won a High Court challenge over the government's universal credit scheme.

> They argued a "fundamental problem" with the system meant their monthly payments varied "enormously", leaving them out of pocket and struggling financially

Note that these are working mothers.

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Re:How Estimates of the Gig Economy Went Wrong by DanBC on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @02:38PM (#18868027)
Uber can't have it all ways. At the moment Uber are exploiting the market to get paid employees, but without having to offer them the protections they'd normally have, and without all the tax and NI payments either.

US companies really need to understand the English concept of "taking the piss".

No-one expects companies to pay all their tax and obey the law all the time. What they do expect is that companies do not take the piss. Uber is taking the piss, and they're going to be regulated if they don't make changes.

> blame the government for not updating their rules

I'm doing that too.

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